What Just Happened at OpenAI? A Guide to the Chaos.

The world of artificial intelligence looks very different on Monday, after a weekend of extraordinary upheaval at OpenAI, one of the world’s highest-profile A.I. companies.

The abrupt ouster of Sam Altman as chief executive of OpenAI on Friday has upended the industry, with investors, executives and others getting to grips with a head-spinning series of twists that reshuffled the major players at the forefront of one the hottest areas in technology.

In the end, after OpenAI rejected appeals to restore Mr. Altman to the top job, Microsoft, the company’s biggest investor, announced on Sunday it would hire him to run a new advanced research lab.

Microsoft’s late-night announcement restored its stock price, which slumped after Friday’s ouster. But more significantly, it appeared to mark a rupture in the tight relationship between the tech giant and OpenAI, the start-up Microsoft has embraced with an investment of $13 billion.

More broadly, the weekend’s turmoil highlighted an unresolved split in the A.I. community over whether artificial intelligence is the most important new technology since web browsers, or if it is potentially dangerous.

Here’s what you need to know about Mr. Altman’s departure, his new job and what could happen next.

What kicked this all off?

On Friday, Mr. Altman was abruptly dismissed as OpenAI’s chief executive. The move was so surprising — and significant — that some tech observers were openly comparing it to when Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985.

Details of his departure are still emerging but a dispute with a fellow founder of OpenAI appears to have played a role. Ilya Sutskever, a board member who founded OpenAI with Mr. Altman and several other people, was said to be growing increasingly alarmed that the company’s technology could pose a significant risk, and that Mr. Altman was not paying close enough attention to the potential harms. Mr. Sutskever also objected to what he perceived as his own diminished role inside the company.

“It doesn’t seem at all implausible that we will have computers — data centers — that are much smarter than people,” Mr. Sutskever said recently on a podcast. “What would such A.I.s do? I don’t know.”

The board has been tight-lipped about the reasons for his departure. In the announcement on Friday, the board said little more than that Mr. Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board.” ”

What was the initial reaction?

It was shock and confusion among rank-and-file employees at OpenAI, and distress among the company’s investors. Microsoft was said to be particularly alarmed by Mr. Altman’s sudden dismissal, and to be leading the campaign to have him reinstated.

Microsoft, as well as other OpenAI investors like Thrive Capital and Sequoia Capital, found out about Mr. Altman’s firing either a minute before the announcement, or after it went public.

OpenAI stood by its firing of Mr. Altman…

As others were pressing for his reinstatement, Mr. Altman was said to have entered discussions with investors about a new artificial intelligence start-up. Mr. Altman is well known within the tech world not only from OpenAI work but also from his years leading Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley start-up incubator.

Alfred Lin, an investor at Sequoia Capital, posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that he looked forward to “the next world-changing company” built by Mr. Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president who quit in solidarity with Mr. Altman.

Some OpenAI employees pledged to quit OpenAI or join Mr. Altman’s new potential venture if the board did not relent.

On Sunday evening, after 48 hours of furious negotiations over the company’s future, OpenAI’s board said it would stand by its decision to oust Mr. Altman and named the second interim chief executive in two days: Emmett Shear, a former executive at Twitch, would succeed Mira Murati, a longtime OpenAI executive, who had been appointed to that role on Friday.

In a memo seen by The New York Times, the company said Mr. Altman’s “behavior and lack of transparency in his interactions with the board undermined the board’s ability to effectively supervise the company in the manner it was mandated to do.”

… and Microsoft made news of its own.

Late Sunday night, Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, swooped in to announce he had hired Mr. Altman, along with Mr. Brockman and “colleagues,” to lead an advanced A.I. research times.

“We’re extremely excited,” Mr. Nadella said on X. “We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success.”

He said Microsoft “remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI,” and “we look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear and OAI’s new leadership team and working with them.”